CBN, others sanction 7 commercial banks N1 billion for foreign exchange violations

Findings reveal that about Seven commercial Banks paid over N1 billion as fines to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Insurance Commission, the Pension Commission, and Others in 2022.

The disclosure was made in the banks’ financials for 2022, which were filed on the Nigerian Exchange Limited.

Names of the seven sanctioned banks

The banks include Access Holdings Plc, Wema Bank, Union Bank, GTCo, FCMB Group, Fidelity Bank, and Stanbic IBTC Holdings.

The violations range from mismatched details on accounts, infringement of foreign exchange guidelines, late rendering of monthly returns, daily returns, publishing unapproved adverts, and unethical conduct.

Punch reports that during the period under review, Access Bank paid N604 million to the CBN, which includes N2 million paid to the apex bank, regarding the breach of the accounts’ administration agreement on March 11, 2022.

The bank paid another N2 million to the CBN for the wrong account opening and mismatched details.

Access Bank paid N100 million and N500 million in fines, respectively, for contravening regulatory guidelines on foreign exchange.

Stanbic IBTC Holdings paid a total of N159 million on December 2021. The bank paid N233 million as fines in 2022 across its business concerns.

Stanbic IBTC is sanctioned across all its business interests

Stanbic IBTC Bank paid N44.85 million in fines for failing to report export earnings and Certificate of Capital Importation to the CBN and Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).

Stanbic paid N5 million for the late rendering of daily returns and another N5 million for the late rendering of monthly returns.

The bank paid a total of N45.85 million to the CBN in 2022.

It paid N500,161.25 fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for not depositing all the earnings of the bank Infrastructure Find in an interest-Yielding account.

The bank also got sanctioned for misinformation about income accrued on investment of bonds.

The National Pension Commission (Pencom) fined the bank about N69,000 for publishing the revised guidelines.

Also, a fine of N10,000 was imposed as an administrative sanction for publishing unapproved advertisements.

The National Insurance Commission fined IBTC Insurance Brokers N15.250 million for failure to avail an on-site inspector of the complete representation of KYC/Customer Due Diligence documents conducted on customers.

The insurance regulator also fined IBTC for late uploading online real-time data policies.

The Federal Inland Revenue Service fined Stanbic IBTC N50,000 for filing of remittance of VAT.

Others are GTCo and its subsidiaries and businesses in Nigeria and abroad, Fidelity Bank and its subsidiaries, FCMB, and Union Bank.